Top 8 Ways to Improve Windows 11 Performance

If you want to speed up and improve your Windows 11 performance, you can’t miss out this guide for it can offer you the most effective methods.

By @Clytze Last Updated December 12, 2024

Why is Windows 11 so laggy?

Typically, when you are experiencing PC works sluggishly, you may be quite eager to know by what means you can improve the performance of your computer to make it run faster. The following situations may cause Windows 11 performance issues.

» Insufficient memory » Too many applications running at the same time » Computer infected with a virus or malware » Windows system not upgraded » Fragmented disk drives » Outdated device drivers

If you haven’t solved this problem yet, you can grab this article to try the methods provided below. There are 8 fixes provided in the following part, hope some of them can satisfy your demand.

How to improve system performance on Windows 11 (8 Ways included)

There are several tips and tricks mentioned in this article to help you manage to do Windows 11 performance improvement.

Solution 1: Free up memory via disk cleanup

The longer a computer is used, the more memory it takes up for its operational data. Once the storage capacity is utilized to a certain extent, read and write speeds can drop dramatically. To increase the speed of Windows 11, you should periodically free up storage space reserved for temporary files.

1. Press Windows+R, type “cleanmgr” and press Enter.

2. Select the files you wish to clean up, press OK and confirm the deletion.

Tip: If you want to boost capacity, select Clean up system files to permanently delete these files.

Solution 2: Turn off background apps

In order to send real-time messages and notifications, Windows 11 runs certain applications permanently in the background, which can significantly affect your computer’s performance. Therefore, you can turn off some programs running in the background to save resources and make Windows 11 faster.

Disable unnecessary background programs one by one by following the steps below.

1. Right-click the Start icon, and select Settings>Privacy.

2. Under the App permissions menu, turn to Background apps, and disable the apps that you don’t want to run in the background.

Solution 3: Disable startup programs

1. Use the Windows + Shift + Esc keyboard shortcut to open Task Manager. Alternatively, right-click the Start icon and choose Task Manager from the list.

2. Turn to Startup, select the programs or apps launching at startup that you want to disable, right-click it and tap Disable.

Solution 4: Defragment your hard disk

Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your PC, and Disk Defragmenter in Windows rearranges the fragmented data so that your disks and drives can work more efficiently. To perform this, follow these steps.

1. Search Defrag in the search box, and then select Defragment and Optimize Drives.

2. Select the drive you want to defrag, then click the Optimise button.

Solution 5: Disable visual effects

To turn transparency effects off via the Personalization settings, press Win + I to open Settings. Then, navigate to Personalization > Colors and click the toggle button for Transparency effects to disable it.

Solution 6: Update System Drivers

Your computer needs driver software to operate the hardware installed within the system. If these drivers are outdated or do not support these devices, then the system will malfunction or run slowly. Therefore, it is important that you update them regularly to ensure that you have defect-free drivers installed on your computer. You can follow these steps to update your drivers.

1. Press Win+X to open a dialog box and select Device Manager.

2. If you see a yellow triangle icon for any entry, this indicates that there may be a problem with the driver. Right-click these entries and click Update Driver.

3. Click on Search automatically for drivers to let Windows install the necessary updates.

Solution 7: Change power mode

Power mode allows you to optimize your Windows 11 device based on power use and performance.

1. Right-click the Start icon and select Settings from the list.

2. Tap System on the left side menu, and click Power&battery on the right side.

3. For Power mode, you can choose Best power efficiency, Balanced (default), or Best performance power mode depending on your needs.

Once you complete the steps, Windows 11 will control the power consumption based on the selected mode, offering more performance, better battery life, or a balance between performance and energy.

Solution 8: Speed up with Windows 11 performance boost tool

If you have tried the methods above but if it seems not so effective for you, then you can use the best Windows 11 performance boost toolAOMEI Backupper Professional to migrate your OS from HDD to SSD, or from SATA SSD to NVMe SSD to speed up your computer. Some powerful features can be listed below:

πŸ‘£ It offers three paths for you to perform disk clone (it allows you to move OS to a new drive by cloning the entire disk), partition clone, and system clone (it lets you transfer only OS to a new drive) according to your different needs. πŸ‘£ With its help, you can clone HDDs, SATA SSDs, NVMe M.2 SSDs, USB flash drives, SD cards, etc.

In this part, I will take the example of migrating OS from HDD to SSD. Firstly, download and install AOMEI Backupper Professional.

Download Free TrialWin11/10/8.1/8/7/XP
Secure Download

Step 1. Install the SSD to your PC, then open this software. Click Clone on the left panel, and choose System Clone from right side.

Step 2. It will automatically select the system-related partition for you. You just need to select inserted SSD as the destination path and click Next.

Step 3. Select the “SSD Alignment” option to accelerate the reading and writing speed of the SSD disk. Confirm all the settings and then click “Start Clone”.

Step 4. When the process is complete, click “Finish”.

To sum up

So much for how to improve Windows 11 performance in this post. Whether you use the tools that come with your system or the best Windows 11 performance boost tool, I hope there is always a way to give you effective help.

Besides the clone function that AOMEI Backupper offers you, it can also assist you to do backup tasks such as creating a full backup of your Windows 11. In addition, if you want to do disk wipe task, it’s the best hard drive wipe software that you worth trying.